Oh West Canadian.
We first met a few years ago. I was dazzled by your digital printing technology, your ability to do document storage and the fact that you had in house design services if I needed them. I liked your promise of very fast, industry leading turn around times. You took me on a tour, wooed me and made me feel like we had a future together. No job was too big or small for you and you always delivered, even on crazy tight timelines. Oh and you had some unique services that set you apart from your competition including a great proofing process and easy to access location. And you sometimes brought us cookies.
In the last year I switched companies and was happy to see that my new gig used you for their printing. But our relationship isn't the same. In the last six months, there has been something wrong with 2/3s of every order we've placed. Sometimes it was quality, sometimes it was colour and sometimes it was timing. One time it was something we hadn't even asked for.
Our account rep is really nice and always very apologetic when mistakes happen. But they seem to happen more than frankly I am comfortable with. Usually when you have things printed, there are deadlines and concepts you want to share with your business audience. If every time you place an order you are crossing your fingers that something doesn't go wrong...well that is troubling.
Recently we even escalated our concerns to upper management. Again, they were super responsive and very nice. We were assured that the errors were all explainable and all flukes. But there is still a disconnect between the great treatment we get from our account person and the quality and timeliness of the end product. Service matters - very much - but after so many errors with the end product I would expect that as part of great service, they'd be making sure that nothing goes wrong with our subsequent orders, at least for a while.
Hopefully we can turn things around West Canadian. I really want us to stay together.